Crashing after SSD + GPU upgrade

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Wiznaz

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Ever since I upgraded my system with a solid state hard drive and better graphics card, I have experienced random ongoing crashes.
The computer freezes (all applications stop working and mouse freezes), then goes to a scrambled screen of a bunch of colors (shown in photo below). All firmware appear to be up to date. What could be causing this?

HARDWARE:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950
CPU: Intel i7-950
Mobo: ASUS P6X58D-E
RAM: 12GB:
  • 3x2GB Corsair XMS3 CAS7
    3x2GB Corsair XMS3 CAS9
Drive:
  • 500GB Samsung SSD 840 (Boot drive)
    2TB / 2TB / 1.5TB / 4TB (Media drives)
PSU: Corsair 750TX 750W

Pics:









 
Solution
W
I'm the OP of this thread. It was aggravating to the point where I was ready to build a new PC with different components. I tried everything and had no luck.

The good news is finally the problem has been completely gone the past 6 months or so and it sort of worked itself out on its own. Somewhere since the time I posted there was a windows or driver update and all the problems were gone!

For anyone with the problem, I suggest to start by updating SSD and GPU firmware and then update all drivers and Windows updates. Good luck!
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Wiznaz

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I upgraded without re-installing Win7 and enabled TRIM.
 
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jkhoward

jkhoward

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The issue is most likely related to you not re-installing Windows. Driver related or something else.. did you image the SSD? Sometimes when you image the SSD it doesn't write the data back in the correct order when going from a normal HDD.

I would recommend that you reinstall Windows.
 
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Wiznaz

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I will re-install Windows 7 later today. Is there anything else I should troubleshoot such as using a different HDD or my old NVidia GPU?

After switching from NVidia to ATI, I did remove the old drivers and installed the new ones. BIOS is up to date as well as GPU Firmware (non-beta)
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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I see some possibilities:
1. Most likely, a graphics card driver problem. Try the newest driver, an older driver, or perhaps a beta driver.
2. A monitor with impending failure. Can you test with a different monitor?
3. Could the graphics card be starting to go bad? Can you test with a different card?
4. If you did not do a clean reinstall, it is possible that there are some problems with the registry or other files.
 
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Wiznaz

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1. I will try the newest graphics beta driver.
2. I forgot to mention I run 3 1080p displays.
3. I can test my old NVidia GPU. I had no issues with my previous setup, I just wanted to upgrade.
4. I will do a fresh install later tonight. If that doesn't work I will swap GPU or SSD or both.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Since your upgrade included a graphics card, I would suspect that first.
If the artifacts show on all the monitors, I would exclude the monitors as culprits.

What nvidia gpu did you use before?

I am wondering if a 7950 is sufficiently strong to run three monitor games.
 
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Wiznaz

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All 3 monitors freeze/scramble and the computer locks up. It makes me think the GPU is not a problem. I am thinking it's the SSD. I ran a GTX460 SuperClocked previously. The games I enjoy playing are older or not very stressful so the 460 was fine on 1 display. The 460 would not run 3 displays. That was the reason for upgrading. BTW, I am not gaming when the monitor crashes. It happens when surfing the web or downloading stuff.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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I would seriously doubt that your problem is the SSD. Once you can boot into windows is shows that the ssd is good. Samsung is very reliable.
If you had a ssd issue, I would expect other symptoms.

Could you test to see if the issue happens with only one monitor attached? Perhaps to different interfaces?
Graphics cards do fail; I would be prepared to return or RMA the card.

Such artifacts can also come from heat issues. Can you verify that the fans are working?

Doing some research on newegg 7950 cards , I see perhaps 10% with zero eggs. Many reports are of failures.
You might have been unlucky.
 
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Wiznaz

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Well I will give a little update since my last posts. I put the Windows 7 install disk in and performed a repair with Internet connection. After that, everything has been smooth with no hangs! Thank you, jkhoward!
 
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jkhoward

jkhoward

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You are very welcome. I wish you selected me for the best answer but hey, it works:)

Glad you are up and running!
 
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Wiznaz

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I did not select the other post as my answer. I think a mod did. Thanks again for the help!



 
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Wiznaz

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Okay, I am going to post an update. The problem is still here unfortunately. The screen can go scrambled while doing random things. It has happened when I am only watching a Youtube video or watching an mkv movie, or just downloading a large file at 10MB/s. The audio will stop playing and the computer will lock up and I have to press the power button. While rebooting it does a check disk and will delete index entries. I also notice some of my Chrome browser settings are deleted or back to default.

Another issue that happens very frequently is that I get a "Not responding" message for 15-20sec if I go into my other hard drives and right click a folder or file and it will show the green loading bar in the address bar.

I even did a fresh Windows install as well. I am starting to believe it is hardware related. Could it be failing SATA cables, power supply or mobo possibly?
 
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Wiznaz

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I used Magician to test all drives and perform SMART testing. All SMART testing passed except for drive Seagate ST32000542AS:

Samsung 840:

840_zps361b7e69.png


Seagate ST32000:

ST32000_zps549040e3.png

ST32000_SMART_zps9c09c63d.png


Western Digital WDC WD150:

WD15001_zps90783086.png


Seagate Backup Plus 4TB:

4TB_zpsf96726f2.png


Seagate ST2000 2TB:

ST2000_zpsb4d2b2be.png
 
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Wiznaz

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Disconnected drive and it did not change anything. Other drives still have the same slow loading/not responding. I also moved drives off the Marvell controller and that did not change anything either.
 
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bhilton5

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Having the same problem... only thing in common is the 840 SSD; Screen and sound freeze is exactly the same... Tried switching motherboard, tried using integrated graphics as well as video card and still no fix?? Seems to happen more frequently when running win 8/8.1 rather than win7... Could this have something to do with samsung's over-provisioning setting? Anybody come up with a solution?
 
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4745454b

4745454b

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Do not hijack someone else's thread, and worse, don't "reopen"/necro something that's 8mo old.

I assume you two have tried pulling the SSD to make sure the problem goes away? I'm going to close this, if the OP is still alive around then PM me to reopen. Otherwise bhilton5 can open his own thread.
 
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Wiznaz

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I'm the OP of this thread. It was aggravating to the point where I was ready to build a new PC with different components. I tried everything and had no luck.

The good news is finally the problem has been completely gone the past 6 months or so and it sort of worked itself out on its own. Somewhere since the time I posted there was a windows or driver update and all the problems were gone!

For anyone with the problem, I suggest to start by updating SSD and GPU firmware and then update all drivers and Windows updates. Good luck!
 
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